Combo road race and TT today, only about 45 miles away, so I thought I'd go out and support the neighboring club.
We had a neutral start of a couple of miles to get out of town, and I motored up front to try to play domestique again. Well, this time it lasted all of maybe ten seconds. My teammates pulled around me, as did the rest of the small peleton. I thought I had kept my speed; I was told later I slowed down. Ooookay. I shot off the back as I had hit my brakes about midway in the field. Maybe it was me; maybe it was their bike handling. I wasn't happy riding the gutter. I may have been better off just sitting in, but I think I would have gotten kicked off pretty soon after. A mile or so later, I notice a couple of riders off the back. I worked my way up to the first, who had split from the second. At about five miles in, I caught the second one, who turned out to be a friend of mine. I thought she had stayed with the crowd. She's been racing the last week (it's kind of a local stage race). We started working together, and she found out how much fun it is to draft on me. I don't know how much she had to crank it down on the climbs, but I seemed to be keeping up.
The bad news came about halfway in. We turned a corner and saw two vehicles surrounding maybe ten riders. It seems that someone made a sharp left when he shouldn't have, resulting in a taco'ed wheel for one rider and a broken fork for another. It turned into a group ride for that group from then on.
I could have ridden with my teammates, but I chose to ride with my other friend. On one hand, that seems a little lame because she had teammates, but I had ridden with her that far and I didn't want to drop her. I ended up dropping due to my aversion to bridges. We had a big sweeping downhill that led to a longish bridge. I should have just kept my mind on the white line. I crossed it just fine, and I had lost my group. Another teammate of mine was kind of toodling along, so we rode in together.
Because he crossed the line before me, I was "last" in the road race. I can say that I was not last in the TT as I took fifteen or twenty seconds out of the guy who started thirty seconds in front of me. I thought I was going to catch him, but no go. My friend put thirty seconds into me, but that's usual. She's been riding much faster than me this season.
Criterium tomorrow, then a couple of weeks off from racing, I think. I've knocked down my schedule again. I do not plan to attempt another 200 this season. I'm going for a faster century in prepartation for a six-hour two weeks after that. I really need to get out on my cross bike to start working on that.
The guy who sponsored my Euro trip last year is interested in our doing the citizens' Paris-Roubaix. That would be both brutal and pretty cool.
Ciao ciao.
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